Essential Colossus
by Madripoor Rose
Summary: The life of Piotr Rasputin of the X Men.
1. Chapter 1

SECOND GENESIS

BY MADRIPOOR ROSE

Disclaimer: The X Men are the property of Marvel Entertainment. This is a work of fanfiction, no copyright infringement intended.

Author's Note: Based on events in Giant Size X Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. References to events in Colossus: Bloodline.

Lake Baikal, Siberia.

It has been a good year for the Ust-Ordynski collective farm. The crop has been larger than expected. Wheat fills the fields like an amber sea, and those who toil in the fields are filled with a feeling of satisfaction, the knowledge of a job well done.

Piotr Rasputin pulled the blue cloth cap off his head, and ran a hand through his black hair, using the back of his hand to wipe sweat and grit from his forehead.

He stretched, trying to ease the ache in his lower back, the cramp from too many hours bent over his pitchfork. It was hard tedious work, following the collective's old combine harvester row by row, gathering any stalks of wheat that had fallen from the thresher into sheaves by hand.

It was wasteful to leave a single stalk behind. Each hand gathered sheaf was a mouthful of bread snatched away from the crows, saved for their hungry brothers and sisters across the land.

It was still hot, sweaty work, and if the wind changed, chaff from the thresher would fall thick as snow. He pulled his cap back on, and leaned on the pitchfork for a moment, looking out over the fields and wondering, hopefully, if they might be finished with the day's work while there was still time for a cooling dip in the lake.

And maybe Irina Borya would like to go for a swim...

The combine chugged its way toward him, and Piotr shook off the daydream and bent over again, using the tines of the pitchfork to poke at the stubble of cut wheat stalks, looking for another slender straw.

Over the engine noise, he could hear Pavel shouting his name, and Piotr looked up, questioningly.

"Piotr, look! Your sister---!"

"What is...NO!" Piotr looked behind him, and his eyes widened with horror. Illyana had toddled under the split rail fence that separated farmyard and field. She had found churned up ground in a tire track, and now sat with her plastic spade and bucket, happily digging a hole.

A runaway tractor bore down on her, speeding at full throttle toward the innocent two year old. Others had seen the danger, and were running, shouting, leaping the fence. Without hesitation, Piotr charged toward his baby sister. Running, legs pumping, feet pounding the uneven terrain.

Nothing in the world existed except Illyana and the tractor, and the need to get her out of harm's way.

He was already too late. Part of him knew it, but he couldn't stand by and watch his sister's slaughter. He reached her, and scooped her up, a sick feeling twisting the pit of his stomach as he turned to face the tractor. Instinctively tucking Illyana under one arm and turning to protect her, reaching out with one hand as if to halt the tractor.

He thought of Mikhail, and the look on his parents' faces when the men from the Baikonur Cosmodrome came. "I'm sorry, I tried, I'm sorry," he thought, and the tractor was on them.

He blinked, and saw that his outstretched arm was silver, mirror bright in the sunshine, and he was touching the grill of the tractor...no, his hand punched through the grill, inside the engine itself. Tortured machinery screamed as a piston shattered against his forearm.

On reflex, he pulled his hand sideways, and the front of the tractor exploded. It sputtered, and stopped.

Illyana was crying.

Half the collective was now standing around them, staring.

His cousin Konstantin swore, and then said a word in English. "Mutant." Piotr looked at him sharply.

Anna Feodorovna inched closer, eyes wide and terrified, then snatched Illyana from his arms and backed up hurriedly to hide behind Arkady. Illyana began to shriek again.

Piotr's mouth fell open. Indignant, he wanted to protest that they knew him, that he was no monster. And then he looked at his metal hands, and at the tractor that he had ripped in half as though it were made of paper, and said nothing.

His mama and papa were coming, running from the cluster of farmhouses. Konstantin's twin sister Klara had gone to get them when the runaway tractor was spotted.

They stopped short, and stared at their transformed son. Piotr took a step forward, and whimpered, "papa...mama...it's still me," in a small voice, as those closest to him flinched back.

Nikolai and Alexandra Rasputin traded a glance, and reacted without noticeable hesitation. Alexandra moved to take Illyana, while Nikolai clapped his hands on his son's biceps. "You saved her! You threw yourself in front of the tractor, my brave son!" he drew Piotr down into a bear hug, and whispered, "Petya, try and turn back to normal."

Piotr swallowed, and nodded, concentrating. What if he couldn't go back? What if he was stuck like this? He felt a funny prickling sensation all over his skin...and it was skin again.

His father nodded with approval and relief. "Are you hurt?"

"Nyet," Piotr said, looking at his hands, and sneaking a glance at his fellow fieldworkers. Some still looked at him with fear in their eyes, but there was also relief and shame. The latter crowded around him now, slapping him on the back and calling him a hero. Konstantin teasing him loudly about his luck, to discover a mutant power right when he most needed one.

Piotr glared at Konstantin, for repeating the word mutant again, but said nothing. Konstantin could be a jerk, but he had to be the man of his family since Aunt Maasha died and Mad Uncle Vlad ran off, so Konstantin had to take care of Klara and Dmitriy. Allowances had to be made for his behavior.

"But what are we going to do about the tractor, Nikolai?" someone called out.

Everyone turned to solemnly study the wreckage. A tractor was a very important piece of equipment on a collective farm. Piotr had almost completely smashed this one. The prospect of going without a tractor while the request for a replacement filtered through the bureaucracy...

"Perhaps it can be fixed," Pavel said thoughtfully, picking up a shattered gearwheel.

His father gave Piotr another pat on the shoulder. "Piotr, go home with your mama and help her with Illyana. Let's see what can be done."

Illyana had worked herself into a frenzy, the hysterical shrieks finally calming to exhausted, hiccuping sobs. Piotr reached for her, timidly, afraid that she would be afraid of him now, but Illyana clung to him and buried her face in his neck.

Piotr carried her to their modest house in the village. Mama clucked and ran for the kitchen, to tend the pot bubbling furiously on the stove. Piotr settled Illyana on the sofa, and put her toy spade and bucket on the floor out of the way.

He dug in a pocket of his pants and found his kerchief, fairly clean, and dried her tears, lightly pinching her button nose with a command to blow. Illyana did, and he wiped her nose gently, folding the kerchief and stuffing it back in his pocket.

"Were you afraid, little one? It is all right, you are safe," he crooned to her. "It is all right."

Illyana snuggled closer to him on the sofa, climbing into his lap. "Tractor was bad? Piotr spank it," she asked, lower lip trembling.

He had to swallow a laugh. "Da, the tractor was very bad." Illyana was starting to smile, so in tones of great seriousness, he added, "Papa is sending the tractor to the barn without any petrol for its supper. It has been a very bad tractor, to chase Illyana like that."

Illyana giggled, and he tapped her very gently on the tip of her nose with his little finger. "And Illyana was not so good a little girl. Leaving the yard while Mama was busy and wandering into the field." The pout came back. Piotr sighed. "I know. You had noone to play with. But we have rules so that noone gets hurt, Illyana."

He left things at that. Mama and Papa would punish her, to ensure that she understood and that there would be no repeat performance.

The little girl's eyelids grew heavy. It was past time for her nap, and the traumatic experience had exhausted her. She was soon sound asleep. Piotr lifted her easily, and carried her to the small bedroom across from Mama and Papa's room. He lay Illyana down on her bed and took off her shoes, sitting her up again despite a sleepy protest to untie the babushka from her golden head. He went back for her spade and bucket, and set them on the toy chest in the corner.

Then Piotr went to the kitchen to see what his Mama wanted him to do next.

The kitchen was hot, the stove and oven had been on all day as Mama did the week's baking while cooking dinner. "The soup did not burn," she told him, bustling about picking up used pans and bowls and piling them in the sink. "Are you hungry, Piotr? There's soup, and warm bread."

Piotr shook his head, and watched her putter around for a moment. "Mama...I'm a mutant." He wanted to say the words out loud. It wasn't quite real to him yet, what had happened. He had to use the English word, mutant, like Konstantin. There was no Russian word for the different ones, the ones with strange powers or who looked more like animals than people. They were something in Pravda articles, happening in far off lands.

Few mutants were born in Russia.

Or if they were, you heard nothing about them. And wasn't that an unsettling thought?

"Da, Piotr, I suppose you are," his mother agreed calmly, and then looked up to see the tears in Piotr's eyes. "Nyet, nyet, Petya. You are our son, and a mutant as well. It is a gift, I think, not a curse. If you had not changed so, you and Illyana both...by the White Wolf's teeth, I could not bear that!"

"They were afraid of me, Mama. Of me! I think...some of them...thought I was going to hurt Illyana."

Alexandra Rasputin shook her head wearily, and reached up to lay her hands on her son's cheeks. "so young..." she sighed. "People are afraid, Petya, of anything different. Their blood was up already, thinking they were too late and Illyana was doomed. And suddenly you were there, doing impossible things. A metal man, grabbing his sister from the very jaws of death and shattering the tractor's engine with a single blow. Little Petya? Gentle Piotr Nikolievitch? Tcha!" She patted his cheek, and let her hands slip to his shoulders. Her eyes widened and she frowned, in a comic mask of fear and suspicion. "We did not know he could do such things. What else might he do?"

He smiled a little, in spite of himself. "The mutants of America are always fighting each other. Perhaps they expected another to appear and attack me? Why, we might trample the wheat!"

"Da," she laughed. "But you will see. Tomorrow it will be just another thing they know about you, Piotr is tall and dark-haired with blue eyes, he can become a metal giant, he draws well, and would rather drink beer than vodka..."

Piotr smiled bravely, but he wasn't that young. He knew there would still be people in the village that hated and feared him, now that everyone knew that he was a mutant.

Just like when Mad Uncle Vlad started hearing voices after his wife died. People were kind to his cousins' faces, but Piotr heard what they said behind their backs.

And at eighteen, Konstantin and Klara still lived as brother and sister. No man would marry a crazy man's daughter. No man would let his daughter marry a crazy man's son.

And who would marry a mutant? Piotr felt a sudden bleak despair. He was sixteen, it was time to start thinking about taking a wife and building his own house, starting a family. Would the girls who cooed and giggled over his broad shoulders and sapphire eyes now spit at him in disgust?

He thought of Anna trying to rescue his baby sister from him, and muttered an excuse to his mother, retreating to his bedroom in the loft.

He moved around aimlessly, straightening up the old table by the window where he sat to draw, a meager collection of sketchbooks and colored pencils assembled by saving his pocket money for the holiday visits to Uncle Ivan and Aunt Tatiana in Vladivostok, where they had specialty shops. He'd been saving up again, for a blank canvas and some tubes of oil paint.

He moved to his dresser, and fiddled with his comb and brush and bottle of lavender water, then looked up into the mirror for a long moment. Studying his reflection. He looked no different than the boy who'd gotten out of bed before sunrise that morning.

"Maybe it doesn't matter if no girl wants me," he told his reflection in the looking glass softly. "maybe I will be arrested for breaking the tractor. Or for being a mutant. Maybe it would be better if I swam out into the middle of the lake, changed, and let the weight of my metal body carry me down to the lakebed. Change again, and drown myself."

A sudden spark of curiosity broke the bleak mood that had settled on him like a shadow. He glanced at the door, listening for sounds of his mother downstairs.

Could he become the metal man again? Or was it something that would only happen when there was danger?

He stared into the looking glass, trying to make it happen again.

He concentrated, and felt the shift within, something inside him deeper than blood and bone twisted...and he became the metal man again. He seemed larger. Taller, and his body had a muscular bulk even heavier than his usual well-defined physique.

In the mirror, he had the same polished-silver appearance he had seen on his arms and hands in the field. His eyes were pure white. So were his teeth, and the inside of his mouth...but his tongue was silver too. He tapped lightly at the flat dark plate of his hair...he had expected something like wire instead. Upon examination the fine hair on his arms and chest was simply gone. No eyebrows or lashes either.

He ran his hands over his skin, wondering at the curious numbness of it. Rubbing his arm from elbow to wrist felt oddly like he was wearing a leather glove, and running his hand over the sleeve of a thick sweater. He felt the pressure and movement, but no delicacy of touch. It was strange.

He paused, and looked nervously at the door again. Waited, breathlessly, to see if he heard anything. But there was no step on the stairs, and he dropped his pants to have a look. Ah. This living statue body he wore was anatomically correct. He patted and prodded experimentally, but found that even this most-sensitive skin was also numbed.

He thought about what they had learned about evolution in school, and decided it might be an advantage, with grim humor. If he was kicked there, instead of doubling over with agony he'd barely notice...while his attacker nursed a broken toe.

He changed back, and comforted himself with a few quick strokes, reassuring himself with the delicious sensation of skin sliding on skin that this secret nighttime pleasure wouldn't be denied him.

For a moment he was tempted to stretch out on his bed and bring himself to satisfaction. Forbidden and decadent to touch himself so when he should rightfully be at school, or working in the fields. Guilt helped him resist the temptation, guilt and the fear of being caught in the act.

He did sit back on the bed, and worried. Breaking the tractor might cause a delay in the harvest. If there were storms, they could lose some of the crop. The collective wouldn't meet their quota...and worse...people would go hungry. Because of him.

Eventually, he went downstairs for his supper. He wasn't hungry, but he knew his Mama was worried. Better to come down and eat than sulk in his room.

Papa came in, when Piotr was done with his meal and was encouraging Illyana to eat instead of patiently dredging every bit of carrot from her bowl and piling them up on a slice of bread to make a soggy sandwich.

"I've been on the telephone," Papa explained, placing a loving hand on the top of Illyana's golden head, and then ruffling Piotr's dark hair, before sitting down at the table. "with your Uncle Ivan in Vladivostok."

Ivan Mishchenko, Aunt Tatya's husband, was a mid-level Party official. Someone who might be able to help.

"He's going to see about getting us a new tractor. A new, new tractor! Not the spare from another collective, or something that's been sitting in a warehouse since the Great Patriotic War," Nikolai Rasputin grinned. "Arkady says maybe we should have you punch some of the trucks."

Piotr grinned back, and finally relaxed. If dour old Arkady was joking about it, maybe it would be all right after all.

He was nervous again, the next morning, going to school. At harvest, they had a few hours of school in the morning, before fieldwork.

The others were nervous as well, and he did get some spooked looks. Noone spat or threw anything at him, and their teacher, Arkady's wife Ludmilla, went over the history of mutation again before the day's lessons, reminding everyone that it was something some people were born with, and couldn't be helped. She asked how Piotr's power could be used to benefit the collective, and there was some lively discussion.

But after school, when everyone went home to drop off their books and have breakfast before reporting for work, there was a strange dark sedan parked in front of the Rasputin house.

Konstantin nudged Piotr. "Look. The KGB came for you."

Piotr's stomach turned over.

Klara smacked her brother. "They're going to train Piotr to be Russia's superhero. Like the American Captain in the Great War."

"Petya?" Konstantin sneered. "Do you remember the time we visited Aunt Tatya and Uncle Ivan, when we were playing hide and seek with Cousin Larissa and Petya fell down that coal cellar? He was still crying when Mikhail carried him to their flat!"

Klara smacked him again. "He was seven! Don't listen to this ass, Piotr. But that car is much nicer than the one Uncle Ivan drives, they must be important men talking to your parents. You shouldn't keep them waiting."

Piotr squared his shoulders and stepped up onto the porch, opening the door. Mama and Papa sat in the front parlor with two strange men. An older bald man in a wheelchair. He wore a dark grey suit with a fine silk tie, and looked like one of the men who worked with Uncle Ivan in the city, if not for the wheelchair.

Beside him sat a younger man, grim-faced and wearing red sunglasses indoors. Piotr swallowed as conversation stopped, and the man with the red shades was the first to turn and stare at him. The man in the wheelchair gave him such a hard, measuring look that Piotr began to believe Konstantin had been right, that they were KGB and here to take him wherever Russia's mutants went.

"Ah, here he is now. Piotr, this is Professor Charles Xavier. He has an interesting proposition for you," Papa said, motioning for Piotr to come in and sit down.

"Yes, sir?" Piotr said, sitting down between his parents. Mama took one of his hands in hers, and squeezed it.

"Your parents tell me your mutation manifested yesterday. When your sister was in danger, your body became armored, as if you were made of an organic steel. You acted selflessly to protect her. Perhaps you have heard of the Avengers or the Fantastic Four? I am putting together a team of superheroes. All mutants. International, although we would be based in New York state."

Piotr's eyes widened. Him, a hero? He looked at his parents uncertainly. "You want me to go with you, to America?" That was so very far away, far away from home and from everything and everyone he knew. "But if I possess such power, as you say...does it not belong to the state?"

Professor Xavier shook his head. "Power such as yours belongs to the world, Peter. To be used for the good of all. And believe me--your powers are needed."

To each according to his need, from each according to his ability, yes. It was selfish, was it not, to stay here and use his power to break rocks and cut down trees, clear land of thorny brush. Those were the best uses of his power that his classmates had come up with in the discussion.

There were evil mutants, and monsters, and alien invaders out there. And ordinary, innocent people suffering. If he could help...protect them...be a hero...than surely he must.

"You say this is to be an international team, Professor. Where are the other members recruited from?" Mama asked.

"Germany. Canada. Ireland. Africa. And Japan. Mister Summers here," and Piotr looked at the silent bespectacled man in surprise, "is from Nebraska. And I have a candidate from the Apache tribe of Native American Indians that I hope will join us."

"If I go with him...I will learn how to deal with my mutant powers, I will be given the opportunity to help people. And I will see America," Piotr said slowly. "Th-there is wisdom in the Professor's words, Papa...but I am happy here." He had to clear his throat as his voice broke. "Tell me, Mama, Papa, what should I do?"

"Do as your heart tells you, my son. It will not betray you."

"My heart tells me to stay, Papa. By my conscience tells me otherwise. I must go, Papa."

There were tears in his Mama's eyes. "Then it is right that you do."

Piotr swallowed. "Then the answer is yes, Professor. I will join your team. Um, when do we leave?"

Professor Xavier smiled sadly. "I'm afraid time is of the essence. You have time to pack your things and say goodbye. We must leave as soon as possible."

Piotr's heart sank. He'd hoped to have at least a week, to ready himself for the changes, to see his friends again, and revisit favorite places. But maybe it was better to go quickly, a clean break.

Illyana was sitting on the stairs, listening, and braiding her doll's hair. She swung the doll by a foot as he approached, hitting him, and glared. "You're going away!" she accused him.

"I need to go, Snowflake. You remember we talked about me leaving home? That I might go to University in Moscow...or marry and build my own house soon."

She frowned at him uncertainly. "But you didn't. I don't want you to go. Mikhail went away."

Piotr's breath caught. Illyana had never known their eldest brother, but all her young life she had heard stories about the cosmonaut's heroic death.

"Mikhail went away, and Mama had me. I got to be a big sister now? I don't want a new baby, I want you!"

"Oh, Illyana. I'm going to learn how to be a mutant...to be metal, like when I saved you from the tractor. But I'm coming back. I promise. Going away doesn't mean you're never coming back...and I think Mama and Papa are too old for new babies. You are our little one, and always will be."

"You're coming back?"

"I promise. And I will write to you, I will send them with letters to Mama and Papa, and they can read them to you, and I will draw many pictures to show you the places I go and what I do there. So you will not miss me so much." He smiled as he thought of the perfect bait. "I'll send you presents too."

She brightened, the prospect of getting her very own mail and presents evidently worth losing the company of her older brother. "Noone else has toys from America," she agreed, pleased. "The Disney bear?"

He smiled gently. Bootlegged copies of Disney Sunday Movies shown on American television were aired in the community hall, and Illyana had been enraptured by something called Winnie The Pooh.

"I will try to find the bear. And perhaps the tigger," he promised.

It hit him then, that he was leaving, and he didn't know how long it would be before he came back. He picked Illyana up and hugged her, planting a light kiss on her forehead, and set her down again before going upstairs to pack.

He was sixteen.

Sixteen year old boys did not cry of homesickness before they had even left the house. He turned his attention to the thoughts of America, getting to see New York and meet mutants from other countries. It was going to be a grand adventure.

He packed his things in his duffle bag...he didn't have much. A few changes of clothes, his pencils and sketchpads.

They were waiting when he came downstairs. Mama was weeping. He hugged her, and kissed her tear-salt cheek. He hugged Papa as well, and solemnly shook his hand, and then shouldered his bag and followed Professor Xavier and Mister Summers out to their car. He was about to offer to help Summers move Xavier's chair from the porch...when it lifted by itself and floated neatly to the ground.

Mutants, right.

He paused, and looked back. Mama, Papa and Illyana had followed them out to the porch, waving. He raised a hand in farewell.

"Dosvidanya, Piotr. Our love goes with you," Papa called.

"Do not worry, Mama. I will write you. Dosvidanya, Papa...I will make you proud."

"We are already proud, my son," Mama called.

To Piotr's surprise, they did not drive to the nearest city with an airport. Only a few miles from the village, where empty fields lay fallow, a strange sleek aircraft waited on an unused road.

Piotr stared. "I have never seen a plane like this. It is American? I like the lines of it, sharp and sleek, like a bird of prey."

That won him a smile from the grim Mister Summers, and the first words he'd spoken. "Close enough. We call it a Blackbird. It's the X Men's private jet."

Piotr frowned. It seemed rather wasteful to have a jet for one's own personal use. Still, Xavier was travelling around the world to recruit for this new team. And from what he knew of the American X Men, the team was always travelling around their country fighting monsters and mutants. So perhaps it was necessary after all, not some rich man's toy.

They boarded, Piotr was amazed to see Summers drive the car right inside the back of the plane through a large hatch. Professor Xavier asked him if he had ever flown before, and Piotr admitted that he had not. Xavier encouraged him to take a window seat.

The Professor had taken a seat across from Piotr. Summers came and took the wheelchair, stowing it in a special rack in the hold next to the car. Piotr was a bit nervous about flying at first, but Xavier made small talk about the collective, his family, the school for mutants he was going to, and the mutants he was going to meet there.

"And with your permission, Piotr, I would like to telepathically teach you to speak English fluently. We are, after all, based in America, and sharing a common language will make things a great deal easier for you to adapt to your new environs, it will help to lessen the culture shock."

"That does sound like it would be helpful," Piotr agreed, and waited expectantly. After a few moments, he asked "What should..." and stopped. He gave the Professor a delighted grin, and carefully tasted the new shapes of the words forming as he spoke. "I can speak English. I am speaking and understanding English!"

They continued to converse in his new language, until it no longer sounded strange to his ears.

The Blackbird flew very fast. It was only a few hours before they landed in a hellishly hot region called Arizona.

This time, Professor Xavier went off alone in the car to speak to the prospective team member. Piotr stayed with Summers at the small airport, and helped him refuel the plane for the last leg of the journey across the continent.

After that, Summers bought them sandwiches from a cafe attached to the airport. American ham and cheese tasted no different, but the bread was soft and white and spongy. Piotr didn't like it as much as the black or rye or wholemeal loaves Mama baked at home. The crisp salty potato chips were good, and he liked the icy cold sweet fizzy cola drink.

After they ate, he ventured to ask, "Should not the Professor have returned by now?"

Summers smiled again, a brief flashing smile. "Not necessarily. This mutant...John Proudstar..." he trailed off. "I don't suppose you learned much American history. He's an Apache Indian, a Native American. He...doesn't have a reason to trust white men...it may take the Professor a while to convince him to join up."

"Ah. I understand, I think. It is strange, is it not, how people always seem to find something to hate and fear about one who is different from them," Piotr bit his lip. "Even at home, where all men are said to be brothers, and equal. When we would visit my cousin in Vladivostok, her city friends would call us stupid hayseed farmers when they thought we could not hear. And when I turned to metal...my friends, who have known me all our lives...they were afraid. Because I wasn't Piotr Nikolievitch any more, I was the mutant in their midst."

"It's the darker side of human nature, to be afraid, and turn that fear into anger. Something we can hopefully rise above, as a race."

Eventually Professor Xavier returned, with Proudstar in tow. He just snorted and looked them over when Xavier introduced them. Something in his eyes reminded Piotr of Konstantin. The rest of the trip was quiet. Piotr pondered this new development silently, looking out the window at the clouds passing by.

It was hard enough being so far from home. He'd hoped to make friends in this new place. The Professor was nice enough, and Summers was polite, if distant. But the international aspect of the new team brought problems he hadn't thought of, too excited by the prospect of travel and learning. But if they were all from other countries...if they let the differences between them stand in their way... Proudstar's sullen silence was a dark omen for this experience.

The Blackbird landed on the grounds of a great house. Piotr's eyes widened at the building, larger than any private house he had ever seen. The grounds attached to the manor house were gardened and wooded, and there was a lake. Not as large as Lake Baikal, of course, but no cattle pond either. He could see a boat, out on the water, taking advantage of the fine weather.

They went inside, Piotr hanging back uncertainly, clutching the straps of his duffle bag, as they walked through a marble tiled foyer into an elegantly appointed drawing room. And Piotr got his first look at his new teammates.

He was the youngest. Some were a few years older than him, some much older. He half listened to Professor Xavier go through the introductions as he studied the people he would be living with and learning from.

The German, Kurt Wagner, first caught his attention. His was the most visible mutation, blue fur, pointed ears, and a whip-like spade-tipped tail, like a creature from a child's storybook.

The African girl, Ororo Munroe. He stared at her, feeling his mouth go dry and something fluttering in his stomach. Snow white hair framed a delicately featured, fox-sharp face, and the coffee with cream coloring of her skin made her blue eyes all the more striking. The loose gold and green robes she wore clung to her curves when she moved.

Shiro Yoshida was the stern-looking Japanese man who had been arguing with the short, stocky Canadian known only as Logan. The two looked close to blows when the four of them had entered the drawing room, Yoshida had been pointedly ignoring him since.

Sean Cassidy of Ireland, a man in his early forties with silver beginning to thread the carrot-red of his hair, merely looked amused. "I signed for a delivery while you were gone, Professor. Sure and I'm thinking it's our costumes come from the tailor," Cassidy said when the introductions were done. "I put them out in our rooms."

"Excellent. Our new arrivals can get settled, and you can change into your working costumes for our first briefing."

Summers led them upstairs, and Piotr was shown to a room that was larger than the first floor of his parents' house. He set his duffle on the foot of the bed, and opened the box that also rested there, taking out a mass of yellow and red cloth.

To Be Continued.


	2. Chapter 2

AND WHEN THERE WAS ONE

BY MADRIPOOR ROSE

Disclaimer: Adapted from the original comics by Marvel Entertainment, no copyright infringement intended.

Westchester, New York. The school had seemed a latter-day tower of Babel at first---but a telepathic crash course in the English language had closed the communication gap in mere seconds.

Now Professor Xavier sits, somberly studying his colorfully costumed houseguests---and whatever thoughts he might have at this point are his alone to know.

Piotr had seen the costumed superheroes in the newspaper before, but not in his wildest flights of fancy had he ever dreamed he would be one. The costume he found waiting for him in the box was very colorful indeed.

Knee high red boots with bright yellow trim. Bright blue tights and red shorts to go over them. A wide red and yellow belt with a buckle trimmed with two concentric circles inside a square, part of the fastening mechanism. The top was an odd sort of vest. A yellow mock-turtleneck fit snugly just under his chin, topped with a red vest with wide, pointed shoulder caps that stood stiffly outward. The cloth molded to his body, and he tried to push the points down, but they were meant to protrude. The shirt narrowed, trailing down to a tail that locked into the belt buckle, leaving his arms and his ribs bare.

To allow for expansion? When he grew larger as he transformed to the metal man?

He studied himself in the mirror self-consciously, before digging through his duffle bag for his comb. He neatened his hair from the rumpled mass of dark curls that resulted from pulling the turtleneck over his head.

It didn't help much. "You look like a clown, Piotr Nikolievitch. So where are the dancing bears?" he asked his reflection wryly.

He took a deep breath, let it out, and fastened the red wrist-cuffs before venturing cautiously out of his room. A glimpse of yellow and green down the hall as Cassidy went down the stairs.

A door opened on the other side of the hallway, and the African girl came out. Ororo.

Her costume was black, trimmed with yellow. An oval-winged cape fastened demurely under her chin, the ends of the cape attached to bracelets at her wrists.

The rest of her costume bared a great deal of cocoa-colored skin. The top cut just beneath her breasts, narrowing to a strap that ran down her belly to a silver ring in the center waistband of her briefs. Black boots similar in design to his own, but decorated with circular cutwork, and a headdress that swept back her waist-length platinum blonde hair completed her outfit.

Piotr stared. He could not help himself, though he knew it was not polite. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

She was adjusting the drape of her cape, testing that it would not hamper her freedom of movement, and looked up to catch him watching her.

"You look at me strangely, Peter Rasputin. Do you not think the costume suits me?"

He feared the blush rushing to his cheeks would soon match his own costume. "It suits you, you look very nice. I...I apologize for staring. I meant no offense."

"I will take none, if you tell me why you stare."

"Again, forgive me. I do not mean to be rude. I am from a very small farming village in Siberia, very remote. I have been to the nearest city a few times, but until now I have never left Siberia. And so...I have never met an African before."

She considered that and smiled serenely. "Ah. In my childhood in Cairo, I have seen many white men. None of your great height, though some Masai warriors may be nearly as tall as you." She looked him up and down, and he shifted uncomfortably in his strange clothes. "I take no offense at your curiosity, if you'll take none at mine."

He smiled, relieved.

"You say you are from a farming village? My children tended the land in Kenya."

"You have children?" He was surprised. He knew she was older than him, by a few years. But she didn't look like a mother, in his limited experience, mothers tended to be plumper of figure, and slightly harried. And it surprised him that a mother would leave her children to join Xavier's team of international X Men...or that the children's father would want her to.

She laughed. "In a manner of speaking. My mutation allows me to command the weather. Windrider and rainmaker am I. The farming villages in Kenya, where I lived, suffered a terrible drought. To them I was Goddess of the Storm and they my grateful children."

Piotr froze. He still did not want to offend this lovely lady, but he couldn't believe he was hearing correctly. Hoping to understand, he said slowly, "So you pretend to be this goddess, and are worshipped by your fellow men and women?"

"I would not say I pretend. The legends speak of a woman with my ability to control the weather. Perhaps the legends foretold my coming and I AM the goddess. The legends and stories go back many generations. If I am not truly She, these farmers still need someone to bring them rain. I can do so, and so act as Her avatar and priestess, in Her name. Have your people no guardian gods or spirits?"

He shook his head. "We put it aside. Religion...organized religion grows corrupt, becomes another tool for the ruling class to oppress the workers with promises of a reward in the afterlife if they endure poverty and abuse in this one." It was what they learned in the collective school, but Piotr paused, thinking of the White Wolf.

Winter personified, the winter that could lay tame outside your door, or kill with the savage speed of a blizzard. His mother's family had always sworn by, and at, the White Wolf. "It sounds as though yours has, um, a more personal connection with the people."

"I suppose, like anything, it depends on the honor and integrity of those involved. I certainly tried to be fair and just in the use of my powers." Ororo said thoughtfully. "Someone else could have held the rains hostage in exchange for tribute. Shall we go downstairs? I believe the Professor is waiting for us."

The others were gathered there, all in colorful and outlandish costumes.

"In all my life, such clothing as this I have never seen," Piotr muttered, eyeing Kurt's white boots and John's fringe and feathers.

Ororo gave him a reproving glance, and thanked Professor Xavier. "The costume is beautiful and the fit---perfect! But how did you...?"

Xavier brought his wheelchair closer. "The uniforms are constructed from unstable molecules, which adapt themselves where necessary. I obtained the fabric from a man named Reed Richards, and I'm certain you'll learn more of him and his friends later. But right now..."

Shiro Yoshida stepped forward. "Right now you will tell us why you dragged us here, Professor! I, for one, am swiftly losing my PATIENCE!"

"Sunfire, please..." Xavier began, in a placating tone, "---it was not my intention to waste your time. I've merely awaited the arrival of one who can explain the situation far better than I. My friends, allow me to present Scott Summers, also called Cyclops. He will fill you in on the details."

Summers now wore a cowled costume of navy blue, trimmed in yellow. And a golden visor that held a rectangular plate of red over his eyes, like the lenses of the glasses he wore with his ordinary clothing.

"The details, people, are depressingly simple! You have been called here because---the X Men have disappeared." He spoke these shocking words with quiet authority. "You seven are our only hope of...but I'm getting ahead of myself. Come on. I may as well show you where it all began!"

Cyclops led the group to a room filled with sleek silver machinery, the purposes of which Piotr could not begin to fathom.

"This is Cerebro, our specially-designed mutant detector. It's through this mechanism that we discovered all of you---and LOST my closest friends!"

Ororo gave a small gasp, the one called Wolverine, Logan, snorted.

Cyclops went on, his voice laced with anger and regret. "We'd all answered the signal-alarm within seconds. The Professor, Angel, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Lorna Dane, my brother Havok, and myself." The uncanny stare of the ruby lensed visor seemed to pass right through them as Cyclops remembered...

Cerebro had detected a new mutant, on the island of Krakoa in the south pacific. An incredibly powerful mutant. The X Men headed there in the Strato-jet, landed, and were ambushed from behind. Cyclops heard his brother Havok cry out in warning, but didn't even have time to react.

"I'm ashamed to say I never even saw what hit us. My head was a throbbing mass of pain and screaming images when I struggled awake Lord knows how long afterward. I didn't realize where I was, nor did I really care. All that concerned me was my friends. What happened to the other X Men? And worse, what had happened to me? My eyes were normal, powerless. That's when I discovered that I was back on the Strato-jet, and I wasn't in control. The automatic pilot was jammed. I spent the next few minutes pounding futilely on the control panel, then resigned myself to the situation and sat back in my seat. I wasn't happy by the time I reached Westchester. Not happy at all. The optic energies that have cursed me since my early teens were back again, with a vengeance. And this time they were so strong, even I could not control them. The professor modified one of my old visors to contain my increased power, and left me to retrain myself while he consulted Cerebro in search of you."

"And he found us," Logan grunted. "So now what?"

"So now we go back to Krakoa to find the original X Men---and the mutant that defeated us!"

"Incorrect, Cyclops!" Shiro Yoshida turned away. "Now YOU go back to Krakoa---not I."

"What?" Cyclops had an edge to his voice, a leader who did not like his orders questioned.

"I will have no part in this fool's errand!"

"I don't understand, Sunfire---we offer you a chance to help your fellow mutants and..."

"I do not even like my fellow mutants, Cyclops. I certainly will not risk my life to help them!"

Piotr glared. Such cowardice, in the face of such need.

Cyclops just stared at the other mutant, and Piotr would not have been surprised if he struck him down with an optic blast. Finally, he said, "I feel sorry for you, Sunfire...but I don't have time to waste arguing. The rest of us have a job to do...and we're going to do it."

He led the rest of them to a marvelous gymnasium and made a test of their powers. Piotr, in his metal form, Colossus as he had been code-named, lifted enormous weights and allowed projectiles to bounce off his indestructible skin.

They had barely begun to scratch the surface of their powers, but evidently this testing was all Cyclops needed to make his final decision on who would be on the team. They all boarded the jet on their rescue mission. Yoshida stood to one side with Xavier, arms folded across his chest.

"It seems I have had my first taste of mutant camaraderie---and I must say, Cyclops---I did not like it," Ororo said, looking out the window with dismay.

Proudstar snorted. "Maybe you didn't notice, sister---but this group ain't exactly a mutual admiration society! We're all involved in this fiasco for our own reasons, girly, an' patting each other on the back ain't one of...huh? Hey, One-Eye, there's something following us!"

"I see it, Thunderbird, it's..."

"Well, I'll be jiggered, One-Eye, Sunfire."

Cyclops opened the hatch to allow the flying mutant to board the plane in mid-air.

Wagner greeted him snidely. "So the prodigal mutant returns! Why did you change your mind, Sunfire? Afraid to go home alone?"

"My reasons are nobody's business but my own, misfit! You'd do well to remember that."

The flight passed in uncomfortable silence after that. Piotr decided that he would have this adventure, help to rescue the X Men, and then go home. He had hoped to make new friends...there was Ororo...but the others made him uncomfortable.

He occupied his mind by making up the story he would tell Illyana about his trip, the pictures he would draw for her, of the plane, the mansion, himself in this costume...

An hour passed. Two hours. And then the forsaken atoll called Krakoa loomed full before the view ports.

"So that's where you mislaid your partners, huh?" Logan grunted. "Can't say much for your taste in vacation spots, Summers."

"And I can't say much for your sense of humor, Wolverine! Nor yours, Thunderbird."

"The name is Proudstar, One-Eye!"

"Not anymore! The professor has given you all code-names, group. You might as well start getting used to them. Now, the assault teams will be as follows: Storm, you and Colossus will come in from the north..."

Piotr tried not to grin as he learned that he would be partnered with the lovely weather-controller. He tried to force a look of stoic determination on his face, and put his hands on his knees to disguise their trembling. Krakoa. This was it.

His first battle. Boyhood scuffles with Sasha and Aloysha didn't count.

"Banshee and Wolverine will move across from the east," Cyclops continued.

"'Tis a pleasure ta be working with ya, laddie," the amiable Irishman nodded to Logan, who responded with a "Whoopie."

"Sunfire and Nightcrawler will start searching from the south," Cyclops steadfastly ignored the commentary.

"No, not him," Sunfire sneered.

"I did not hear Cyclops giving you a choice, man." Nightcrawler responded with equal distaste.

"Thunderbird and I will handle the west end of the island. Now get ready...South Team, your drop is coming up first."

Sunfire was already opening the trapdoor hatch. He complained, but he followed orders. "I don't much like the tone of your voice, Cyclops."

"We can argue about it when you get back. Now...go!"

Sunfire and Nightcrawler stepped out into nothingness, Sunfire carrying Nightcrawler to the ground. It was then that Piotr realized that the teams had been split up into one who could fly and one who could not.

"East team...Go!" Banshee and Wolverine dropped away, the eerie cry of Banshee's sonic scream loud over the engines.

"North team---"

Piotr took a deep breath, standing at the edge of the trapdoor hatch. "That is our signal, Storm."

It didn't look like they were very much higher than the promontory rock they used to dive into Lake Baikal. He thought of the tractor, and the tests, and jumped.

"Colossus---NO!" Storm gasped.

Wind tore at his hair and drew tears from his eyes as he plummeted, in free-fall. Then the wind changed and he was brought up short, with a sharp jerk. Storm had caught him by the belt.

"You fool! You cannot fly," she chided him over the roar of the wind.

"Of course not," he shouted back. "But I can land with the best of them!"

"Land?!" she questioned, setting him gently on his feet in a clearing in the thick jungle. He made a show of straightening his wrist cuffs, embarrassed. He'd hoped to pull off a spectacular landing and impress her; instead Storm had caught and carried him as easily as he might carry Illyana down a flight of stairs.

"I meant to transform to my armor. There was no need to fly me down to the ground," he explained.

She raised an eyebrow. "Yet Cyclops reported that something on this island neutralized his powers. If my own abilities left me as we came in to land, the fall would have been nasty, but not, I think, as nasty as you would find the impact without your armor."

Piotr swallowed, and felt stupid. "I had not thought of that."

"Bravery is not rushing in blindly. We would do well to remember that. This island has already claimed mutants just as powerful as and more experienced than you and I."

He nodded, and began to survey their surroundings, spotting an opening in the thick underbrush. "There is a game trail," he pointed it out.

"Then let us proceed."

They began to move inland. The air was uncomfortably warm and humid, thick with the musty-sweet scent of rotting plants. Birds twittered high in the canopy, glimpsed in flashes of brightly colored feathers.

"Ororo, do you hunt?" he asked, noticing something about their trail that unsettled him.

"No," she frowned as he stopped and knelt; digging his hand into the bare earth they walked on. "What is it?"

"My father and I would hunt sometimes. This trail...the earth is moist, wet. But not mud. It rained two days ago, three maybe. I have seen no tracks."

Ororo's eyes widened. She took a breath, tasted the air. "Two days have passed since it last rained here. This is lush and fertile jungle. It should take constant traffic to keep this pathway from being overgrown. If it is, indeed, a game trail."

Piotr nodded, pleased that she had understood so quickly, and armored himself. "Perhaps you should take to the air and scout ahead of us?"

She wrapped herself in a whirlwind and did so. He took a step off the path and tried to look beyond the thicket of branches and leaves.

A blessedly cool breeze heralded Ororo's return as she landed lightly on her feet at his side. "I saw nothing."

"I could be mistaken. The climate and animals of Siberia are both very different than in this tropical land. Still, perhaps we should quicken our pace."

"And remain alert."

They walked on. It was impossible to see anything more than a foot or so off the path. Piotr tried. He was somewhat disappointed that they needed to be silent, that he could not take the opportunity to get to know Ororo better.

He was also increasingly impressed. Most of the girls he knew would be useless in this situation. Granted, the only thing close to this situation had been when he was Illyana's age, and a boy got lost in the woods in spring, after a hard winter. Wolves had ventured close to the village, and he had overheard Papa talking to Mama...that a tiger had been spotted as well.

He remembered the girls crying that the boy was surely dead, as well as all the boys and men fool enough to search for him.

But his brother Mikhail carried the boy home.

The path curved, and after a few more minutes of walking, the top of a strangely shaped stone edifice was visible through the trees.

Ororo turned to him. "Odd, I do not recall seeing that temple before. Come, Colossus---let us begin our search there."

Piotr followed her. The path, or road, curved again, and passed through a cut in a hillside. Obviously shaped by the temple builders. "Whatever you say, Ororo. You are so unlike the girls in my..." A low rumble interrupted him. "Eh? That sound?!"

"An avalanche!" Ororo shouted, pointing to several large boulders rolling, falling down the sheer cliffside. "Quickly, Colossus---perhaps we can still outrun it!"

Piotr glanced back, and saw that the rocks were now flying, gliding horizontally.

"This landslide cannot be outrun, Storm! It has changed its direction to follow us!"

Ororo stopped running and turned back to face the onslaught. "Then if we cannot avoid a confrontation, we must stand our ground---and defend ourselves!"

In his armored form, Piotr instantly pulled a tree out of the ground, tearing its roots from the soil. "Those mad rocks can no longer hurt me, Ororo---but for threatening YOU, I shall crush them!"

Using the tree as a bat, he managed to hit the first and largest boulder, sending it crashing back into the rest of the swarm.

Storm, true to her code-name, had whipped up another windstorm. She gathered up the rocks in a miniature tornado. "I thank you, Peter---but there is no need to protect me. I am no longer threatened." The rocks rose into the sky and were gone.

"That was very impressive, Ororo," he said shyly. "I did not think you could conjure a wind fierce enough to lift those rocks."

"It was your quick action that allowed me to gather the winds to me."

He squared his shoulders and smiled at her. Another half hour's walk brought them to the temple. Cyclops and Thunderbird were already there.

"Storm, Colossus, glad you made it in one piece."

"Barely, Cyclops," Ororo responded. "Just barely. I only hope the others arrive safely as well."

They were in a large clearing. The temple rose before them, like the top tier of a step pyramid, Piotr recognized it from the faded photographs in a world history textbook. Mexico, South America. It was definitely out of place here. They were all looking around, Ororo reporting their suspicions about the trail they'd walked down into the interior of the island, and the flying avalanche.

Piotr was examining the strange carvings on the great archway that led inside. They were like nothing he had ever seen before. Their teacher had spent only a month covering the Incan, Aztec, and Mayan civilizations, so he knew that he was no expert. But the carvings left an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't quite tell if they were stylized and badly eroded, or abstract and random shapes.

He heard Banshee call out, "Faith! 'Tis good t'be seein' ye all again. 'Twas a moment there I had me doubts," as he and Wolverine joined them.

Ororo answered him, "and you were not alone."

The newcomers added their tales of giant crab-monsters to Piotr and Ororo's rockslide and Cyclops and Thunderbird's own battle with prehensile vines. They were agreeing that they had all shared many strange experiences without encountering the X Men or the mutant native to this island…or any natives, for that matter. Nightcrawler and Sunfire finally rejoined them. For them, it had been attacking birds.

"And since we're all finally here, I think it's about time we found out what's inside this tumbledown temple. I've got a gut feeling someone LURED us here for precisely that purpose---and I'd hate to disappoint them now!" Cyclops announced, and led the way up the steps.

Just inside the carved archway, there was a blank wall of great stone blocks. Cyclops punched one lightly with his fist. "Hmm---It appears we're going to have to earn the dubious privilege of getting in there! Doors sealed tight, and it's about a foot thick. Looks like the time has come for your first practical lesson in the art of being an X Man. Breaking and entering."

They all took it in turns. Wolverine would scratch at the rock with the claws that emerged from his hands, scoring it so that it would crumble away easily under Piotr's armored fists.

Cyclops and Sunfire blasted it with the beams of force they generated.

Storm struck it with lightning, driving cracks and fissures deeper into the heavy blockade of stone.

With their combined efforts, it did not take long for them to clear an opening. They followed Cyclops cautiously into the stygian darkness.

"Oh…my…god," Cyclops breathed, as they came into the temple chamber. Piotr swallowed, eyes widening in horror. The X Men, the heroes he had read about in Pravda….they all hung, entangled and encased by strands of thick ropy tubing. They were all unconscious. At least, he hoped they were.

Cyclops spoke again, sounding as though he was fighting the urge to vomit. "Oh my dear God…it's th-the other X Men…and something seems to be feeding on them!" He moved toward Marvel Girl. "Well, don't just stand there staring at them, in pity's name, set them free!"

Piotr moved to the winged man, Angel. The tubes snapped easily enough. Unwinding them carefully wasn't as easy; it reminded him of tangled yarn. He tried to be careful in catching Angel as he fell free, not wanting to injure him further, or damage the great white wings.

The earth began to shake beneath his feet.

"Cripes." Wolverine complained, "What's going on? As soon as we pulled these tubes loose---the place started shaking itself apart!"

"Quickly," Cyclops ordered, "carry whoever is closest to you, and let's get out of here before this temple comes down around our ears."

They barely made it out. Cyclops carried Marvel Girl. Piotr had Angel draped over one shoulder, and Havok—who Nightcrawler had thrust at him while hurrying to snap more tubes---under the other arm. Storm and Banshee supported Iceman between them, and Sunfire was carrying a green-haired girl Piotr didn't recognize.

As the temple toppled into ruin behind them, their burdens began to stir. Piotr set the men he'd carried down carefully on the ground. Angel knelt, and flapped his wings as if to stretch them after his long confinement. Havok sat up, clutching his head like a man who had been drinking vodka the night before.

"They're coming around," Cyclops sounded profoundly relieved by his friends' recovery.

"WHY, Cyclops? Why did you come back for us?" Angel groaned.

"Huh?" This was not the response Cyclops was expecting.

"You fool!" Angel spat bitterly. "Don't you understand? It WANTED you to come back---and bring others with you. It was all a trap…and now it's too late."

Another quake had begun while he was speaking. The land heaved under their feet, bulging and swelling around the base of the temple.

"The ground---rising up around the fallen temple!" Cyclops pointed and shouted.

And as a great muddy head lifted, obsidian eyes turning toward the group of X Men old and new with mindless, endless hunger, Angel shouted back, "of course, haven't you realized yet? We came to this island to look for a mutant…but the mutant is the island itself!"

To Be Continued.


	3. Chapter 3

Krakoa...The Island That Walks Like A Man...

By Madripoor Rose

Disclaimer: Adapted from the original comics by Marvel Entertainment, no copyright infringement intended.

Images flood mutant minds as they stood rooted to the spot...the sun-burst brilliance of an early atomic test, whose unseen radiation permeated every living organism here...until they grew linked in a colony intelligence that gave the island a life of its own.

But Krakoa grew hungry then...a hunger barely appeased when the X Men arrived upon the scene.

Krakoa fed upon their mutant energies and grew hungrier still...thus it released one X Man and sent him forth to find more food...which Cyclops unwittingly did.

"And now we will go hungry no longer!" The monstrous mutant was almost smug.

"Filthy monster," Cyclops shouted, realizing, "you USED me like a Judas goat, leading lambs to the slaughter!"

"Yes, we used you, eyeless one, as we used the crippled on who gathered you all together at the command of a voice only his mind could hear."

Piotr glared at the creature of animated mud grimly. He had wondered why Gospodin Xavier sought to create a new team for this rescue mission and sent them out untrained and untried, when the time it took locating and recruiting them all would have been better spent enlisting the help of other superheroes, appealing to the Avengers or Fantastic Four for aid.

If this living landmass had the telepathic strength to fool even the great Xavier into doing his bidding, would the X Men old and new even stand a chance of defeating it?

"But the time for explanations is past! Now it is time for Krakoa to feed!"

"Scatter, X Men! Quickly," Cyclops shouted as the creature moved.

"You lily-livers want to scatter, that's swell---but the Wolverine is going out for blood!"

'Maybe if they all attacked in force, at once...a cow can kick a wolf to death with a lucky strike of the hoof,' Piotr thought. The island had formed a vaguely man-shaped avatar to gloat over its captives and intentions. Piotr charged up onto one of Krakoa's feet and started pounded at the ankle, trying to break through as they had the stone of the false temple, trying to force it off-balance.

MY X MEN, STOP. I'VE BEEN MENTALLY MONITORING YOUR BATTLE THUS FAR---STUDYING THIS LIVING ISLAND---AND I BELIEVE I'VE DISCOVERED ITS SOLE WEAK POINT!

It was the telepathic voice of Professor Xavier. Piotr listened attentively as Xavier outlined the plan.

It is a war fought on two fronts, as Professor Xavier wages deadly mental combat with a crazed community intellect...while his students race to carry out his plan.

At Cyclops's command, the eyes of the mutant called Storm grow dark once more and she soars aloft on the wings of the wind. High above Krakoa she hovers...slowly summoning to her the tempest's full fury...then suddenly transmitting those seething energies to the lithe young woman who waits anxiously below, thus restoring the mighty magnetic powers of the girl called Lorna Dane! 

Within moments the circuit is completed and Lorna Dane screams in anguish as her physical limits are reached and exceeded!

Havok grabbed at his brother's arm as bolt after bolt of lightning struck the woman he loved. "You've got to call it off, Scott! Lorna can't take that kind of punishment! She'll be killed!"

"Alex...I can't! I can't sacrifice a world to save one woman, Alex, even if she is your girlfriend."

"I swear to you, brother or no brother...if she dies..."

The remainder of Havok's angry outburst is slain by the crackling roar of the thunderous downpour, even as the torrential waters lend life to something else.

"The blinkin' beastie's gettin' stronger now! But how?" Banshee shouted.

The creature Krakoa seemed to bathe in the rain. "Fools! You brought rain from the sky to destroy us!" it roared, "but it serves only to replenish us and give us the strength to destroy you!"

They attacked again, Piotr still striking at his chosen target. It was like punching the earth itself. Iceman, Banshee, and Sunfire all attacked from above. They could barely slow it down.

"We can't hold that thing off forever, Scott! If the Professor's plan doesn't work..." Marvel Girl called out.

"We'll know if it works soon enough, Jean! Get everybody back, we're ready to begin!"

With that, a solemn Scott Summers turns, to find that the figure of Lorna Dane has become lost within a coruscating incandescent tower of sheer magnetic force. His mutant eyes narrow, and a single word forms on his lips; "Now!"

Both Cyclops and Havok turn the full fury of their powers upon the spot where Lorna stood.

With almost indescribable force, Lorna's magnetic energies erupt downward...through five miles of ocean...through four thousand miles of the Earth's ancient crust...down to the very molten core of the planet itself, where the effects are immediate and violent.

The creature Krakoa staggered. "Wha-what is happening to us? Why do we feel so strange? Our mind...can't retain form..." The vaguely humanoid form began to melt into a misshapen mountain of mud.

"It's working! Exactly as the Professor said it would!" Cyclops cried out. "We've only got seconds to get out of here, before the end!"

"Lorna's too weak to run, I'll..." Havok turned to find that Iceman had already scooped the Mistress of Magnetism up into his arms.

"The lady doesn't need your help, hotshot. She's in good hands for a change."

"Why, you little..."

"Argue later, now just move it!" Cyclops ordered.

And move it they do, as few other beings on Earth possibly could. Ororo took to the air again, easily lifting Piotr's weight with her own. Sunfire was carrying Wolverine in likewise manner. Iceman skated along a slide of ice he'd created, like a Baikal seal crossing the lake in winter.

Warpath, in the lead, cried out a warning. "Holy Crow! Will ya take a look at the beach up ahead? This whole freaking island is breaking up around us!"

"And without our Strato-Jet there's no way we can get far enough from the island before...huh?" Angel trailed off as Iceman constructed a large iceberg floating in the sea.

"Never let it be said that we icemen aren't good for something, Angel. Everybody get aboard---and fast!"

Swiftly, the desperate X Men clamber aboard the crude ice raft, then hang on for dear life as the mutant powers of Cyclops and Havok are harnessed for propulsion, sending the makeshift craft hurtling away from Krakoa with the speed of a hydroplane.

Behind them the world convulses in carnage...as the results of Lorna Dane's massive energy bolt become apparent at last. For her electrically charged burst has cut across the planet's primary lines of magnetic force---severing them---and for an instant around the island of Krakoa, gravity ceases to exist.

Then the Earth-forces come violently together...and the effect is the same as squeezing wet soap through a fist! Krakoa is launched violently into space! Krakoa's death cry rings for long seconds through the minds of the awestruck X Men...then a new, more frightening reality intrudes upon the scene.

"Brace yourselves, everyone, there's trouble ahead," Cyclops shouted. "The ocean is rushing in to fill the space Krakoa just vacated...and we're caught in the whirlpool! Bobby, quickly, throw an airtight ice-dome over this raft! It's our only chance to survive this miserable maelstrom!"

Iceman obeyed, just in the nick of time. Voraciously, the great ice bubble is sucked into the wildly swirling maw of the whirlpool, and those within are battered almost senseless against its cold, unfeeling walls.

Piotr found it quite dizzying. Not just the rapid tumbling of their vessel, the way they slid and crashed painfully into the ice and each other. He could not force himself to stay flesh.

He tried, out of fear he would crush one of the others, but instinct returned him to his armored form. Jean cried out in pain, cracking her hand against his shoulder.

The seething waters swirl closed above their heads…and for a time the sea is calm. The minutes pass interminably…then the huge gleaming bubble of ice bursts the ocean's surface…and is itself burst in turn by a beam of scarlet fury, unleashed from the eyes of the Cyclops!

"Fresh air, a warm sun…did you ever see anything more beautiful?" Jean sighed.

"Yeah, that!" Angel called out, as their aircraft bobbed to the surface. "Almost forgot the ol' Strato-Jet was watertight! Paddle on over while I go open up the hatch," he called, launching himself into flight.

They reached the jet and made themselves as comfortable as they could under the crowded conditions.

"Sorry we don't have seats for all of you…but this plane wasn't designed to carry so many mutants!" Angel laughed, "which brings us to our next little problem…what are we going to do with thirteen X Men?"

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

'Dear Mama and Papa…'

Piotr sat under a tree in the Xavier School's front garden with a clipboard and some typing paper. He had promised to write letters home frequently, but in practice he found it troubling. He didn't want to worry his parents. He didn't want to lie to them either. But almost all he had to write about was fighting.

Letters from home were always packed with news. A new field cleared for planting, yield margins for crops, the health of the goats, new kittens, cute things Illyana had done, general gossip about everyone.

'How are you? I miss you all very much. Tell Illyana that I am thinking of my little snezhinska and please give to her the cartoons I have enclosed showing me with my new friends, my team-mates and fellow X Men.

We have had our first mission, to rescue the American X Men from an island where they were lost. We had to fight the island itself, it was very exciting. I do not think I like the tropics, though, it was very hot and humid.

Gospodin Xavier had taught me to speak and to read and write English fluently, with his mind. His is a very great power.

We all stay in Xavier's family home, a rather grand manor house. I have my own room. He has made the house into a school for mutants. I am the youngest here, and so I am the only one to have lessons, the focus of the school is to learn how best to use the abilities we have been given.

There is a gymnasium with special equipment for us, Xavier is having a set of weights designed for me, for I am too strong for those he already has in place. I can easily lift the old Ford Ranger pick-up truck the gardener uses over my head, and so I have been exercising with that. It makes the gardener nervous, but I have promised him that I will be very careful with his vehicle.

Has the tractor I broke been replaced yet? I feel very guilty about that. But I do not know of any other way I could have saved Illyana, and I might not have discovered my mutation or been invited to join the X Men here in America, where I am convinced I will do the most good….

"Hi, Peter," Marvel Girl, Jean, called out to him from the front step. "Enjoying the nice weather by doing your homework outside?"

"Nyet," he paused, having to translate his thoughts back into English again. "No. I am writing a letter home to my parents. I have promised to write twice a week so that my mama will not worry so much."

"Mothers do worry." She'd walked closer. "I have a camera, if you'd like I could take a photograph of you in your X Men costume there, then you could send it with your letter and show your mother how handsome you look."

He smiled a little uncertainly. "I would not wish to be a bother, but that would be very nice, thank you. I have been drawing pictures to send back with my letters."

"You're an artist? Can I see?"

"They are up in my room…one moment…." he turned to a fresh page and picked up his pencil again. Sketching quickly, he managed to capture a rough but accurate likeness of the redhead, and held it out for her inspection.

"Oh my! That's lovely! You're really talented. Did you have lessons?"

Piotr grinned at the thought. Art lessons? Between schoolwork and farm-work and family chores? "No. I was just mad for drawing and practiced on any piece of paper we could spare."

"Well, you're really good. Can I keep this? And will you sign it for me?"

Pleased, Piotr took it back and wrote, 'Jean—PR' at the bottom of the page, then handed it back.

"Let me take this to my room for safekeeping, I can grab my camera and take that photo of you for your mother," she paused, and tilted her head curiously. "Why are you wearing your costume now, anyway? Your team's Danger Room session isn't until this afternoon."

"I have been exercising…practicing with my powers. The costume is destined to stretch with my transformations, but my clothing is not."

"I'll talk to the Professor about getting you some proper exercise gear. You shouldn't have to work-out in your costume."

"It is no trouble to, I don't mind," he protested, a bit weakly. He was beginning to understand why Bobby had once referred to Jean as the mansion mom.

She took her sketch upstairs, and returned with her camera, having him pose for several shots before leaving on her delayed shopping trip.

A week later, Piotr found the color photographs in his room, along with a sweat-suit, shorts and a sleeveless tank-top, and a pair of sneakers, all in the proper size. Americans had such odd names for clothing, and clothing for such odd purposes. But he wore them anyway.

"Dear Mama and Papa. Enclosed please find some cartoons I drew for Illyana and also three color photographs of the X Man Colossus. A fine and handsome fellow, isn't he? I have been working very hard at my studies. It seems wasteful that the Professor must spend so much time teaching only me, but my lessons are greatly expanded from what we were taught at home. I suppose having only one student allows the Professor to spend more time on my studies. Stefan and Aloysha, my old friends, must think me lucky to have no chores or farm-work to do here. But I am still getting up before sunrise to keep up with my schoolwork!

I miss you all very much.

I was very relieved to hear that Uncle Ivan delivered the promised replacement tractor, and that it is new from the factory. We spent so much time in trying to repair the old tractor every time it broke down, and trying to find parts for it. Having a new tractor in good working order will, I hope, in some small way make up for my absence. I still feel bad that I am not there to do my share of the work, and I find I miss the work. The smell of turned earth and fresh cut straw. Looking out over the fields and out at the lake gleaming in the distance. Driving to deliver the harvest to the railroad depot for shipment in our old trucks.

I don't miss mucking out the stalls in the barns. I am homesick, not sick in the head. Hah. A little joke.

I also miss Mama's good cooking. We get plenty of food to eat here, I should not complain, but it is American food and strange. They do not have black bread and smoked omul….bagels and lox is not the same. I also miss good cabbage borscht.

I am making some friends here, despite being youngest. Logan has some Russian, although he speaks with a very strange accent, and has asked me to help him practice it. He can be rather crude, like Yuri when he had too much vodka, but I am sure he has a good heart, else the Professor would not have chosen him to join our team.

Kurt was a circus acrobat in Germany. I've told him how I hoped to be a gymnast when I was little. He joked that it was hard to believe I was ever little. I may be the youngest here but I am still taller than everyone else. He has taught me a few moves that even such a clumsy ox of a boy can do. I think that he misses performing for the circus audience. He is very funny, always making jokes.

Bobby is always playing jokes. If you dare leave a drink unattended you will find at your next sip it has been frozen solid.

Ororo and I talk often of our homelands. It seems odd that an African and Siberyaki can have so much common ground…but the others grew up in cities and we both did not. She looked after farmland, but did no farming herself. It is too bad that I was not born with her powers. Controlling the weather is a very good mutation for farmers…and I can only wonder what effect on harvest production she would have had in more fertile lands.

Jean took the photographs I have enclosed. She is nice, but not overly friendly. She is Scott's girlfriend, perhaps that is why. He is training us, after all. She made sure I got appropriate clothing for exercising. It is funny that Americans believe you need special new clothes to sweat in and get all dirty, not your oldest clothes one step from the ragbag. They are very comfortable to work out in.

Well. I have no more news to share, except that I miss you all very much, and I hope you are all well.

Your loving son, Piotr."


End file.
